Informative Speech Outline

Topic: Friendship

Introduction

•  Attention-getter

(I will show them a Powerpoint presentation to show them pictures of some of my friends. Might even show them a few funny pictures to enlighten their mood.) Do you know what are the similarities between these people… and these people? They’re all human beings with different personalities—from different parts of Malaysia and even the world—but they’re all the same. They’re all my friends. We’re all in this beautiful form of relationship of mutual affection, and it’s called friendship.

•       Credibility statement

That, dear audience, will be the topic of focus for my informative speech today. ‘Why friendship?’ you may ask. Why not the Burmese hierarchical system or the history of International Space Station or ‘ganja’? I just wanted a topic that can apply to all of us – a topic which information and main ideas can be shared among us, and a topic that won’t require me to remember complicated gerunds because I have a doubtable long-term memory capacity. Other than that, I’m presenting on this topic to personally satisfy Miss Afifa who wants me to actually tackle this casual topic, yet making it informative and relatable at the same time.

•          Introduction of topic

Let’s begin with the definition of friendship itself. According to Wikipedia, friendship is a form of relationship of mutual affection between two or more people, and it is a stronger, more solid form of interpersonal bond than association. In short, friendship is when two or more people choose to love, care, and trust and understand one another. You can’t say friendship is not a serious matter in life because we know it is – and the scientists and psychologists know it is as well. That would be the reason why there are various studies in the academic fields about friendship such as in sociology, social psychology, anthropology and philosophy.

I’m pretty sure I go on with such boring factual details I might lose your attention within the next minute, so let’s make this speech sound more… light-hearted. Look at your friends. Stare at their faces. What traits do they possess that makes you want to develop this emotional bond with them? Is it their nose? Is it the hair? Is it their Joyah and Jemah attitude? There are particularly no specific traits that can form a friendship but commonly, more often than not, friends will share the same interests, background, occupation, and most commonly demographics.

•       Thesis/preview statement

I won’t be talking about the psychological studies of friendship because that would be too complicated for me. So I will just touch on this topic lightly and let us just take a trip down memory lane… And reminisce how the friendship in our lives forms, how they developed, how they stayed strong, how they turn into a different form of relationship and most importantly, how they change us.

Body

•   Part A

Do you lot remember how friendship was back when we were infants? When we were kids? Most of the time it is formed through the sharing of toys, or the enjoyment and fun from playing and doing exciting activities together. Do you mind if I tell you about my first friendship? It was with this small guy named Paan, we used to play ‘polis sentri’ together and climb trees and hide in the drains together. It was both beautiful and tragic but let me just save the tragic part for later. But yes, back then friendship was developed through sharing.

However, as we grow up, the expectations for ‘best friends’ grow as we begin to want to make our circle of friends closer. According to a study by Bigelow and La Gaipa in 1975, they highlighted that there are three stages of development in friendship expectations. The first stage is as what I have mentioned just now – through shared activities, and also geographical closeness. We tend to only develop friendship with friends from the same kindergarten, or the same school and neighbourhood when we were kids, right?

The second phase, we emphasize sharing, loyalty and commitment. This was what we look for back when we were in school, right? People we can trust with our secrets. The ones we can tell the fact that we are in love with the school’s bad boy and the teachers don’t like him and you insist to continue crushing on them anyway. The people who won’t mind if you call them up at 10am just to ask them to take you to the kedai ABC makan cendol until 5pm and they won’t mind. Friends from school days are those you can never forget in your entire life, I suppose. Even my abah will sit us down sometimes and tells us about his high school friends. I assume those memories just never fade.

Let’s move on to the final stage where we desire friends with similar attitudes, values and interests. This can happen to you in high school years as well. However, for me, this happens here. I found friends that can laugh as loudly as I do now, because back in school I laughed the loudest and people will stare at me and go ‘the heck this girl?’. I found friends I share same music interests with here, while back in my kampong no one knows sebutir lagu omputeh pun. You may have found friends who share same music interests as you as well. At least Sab and Syaz did, didn’t you? Or people who share the same passion as you in K-Pop and anime.

Transition: Now that we’ve gone on a trip down Honeymoon Avenue, how about we take a little jog down the Boulevard of Broken Dreams? Okay that doesn’t fit, but yeah.

•          Part B

In friendships there will be conflicts and we’ve all been there, done that. Some of us have been betrayed, stabbed in the back. Some of us have betrayed and stabbed someone in the back. It’s the nature of things I guess – good things don’t last, and everything must come to an end. Even as I read Wikipedia there are two subheadings; one says ‘making friends’, the other says ‘ending a friendship’.

Back when we were young, how did friendship end? We might have a small fight with them – they stole or conquered our Transformers figurine or accidentally shoved us and we accused them of doing so on purpose. And as we grow older those reasons changes – we lose friends because we lose trust in them. Maybe they fell in love with our crushes and we think they crossed us. Maybe they prioritize someone else instead of us and we felt betrayed, and that they don’t care anymore. Or maybe, friendship ends because it turned into something else – a love relationship that requires more attention and feelings, and declaring you two as just ‘friends’ seems downgrading. Who knows?

For me, I lost Paan my childhood friend because of Abah – he didn’t want to be friends with Paan because he thought Paan was a bad influence for me. But if only Abah knows what I do with my friends over here… Stargazing in the middle roundabouts and next to drains on top of beach mats, pasting and ‘distributing’ the picture of this black guy – in Miss Afifa’s bag, under people’s bunk beds, and on Mr Luthfi’s car, we even have like this mock album called ‘Anjing’ and good Lord, if the contents were real…Rolling around at Pantai Klebang, play an improvised hide and seek game, visit the zoo like a bunch of wild college students would… Like, dude, I have a son. No, two sons. Lutfi has like 10. If Paan was bad influence then whAT IS THISSSS???

Conclusion

·         Summary

There was once this quote I found somewhere but I really can’t remember where. Short-term memory, people; do forgive me. “If you’re not losing friends, you’re not growing up.” In the end, friendship itself is just another phase of experience in life. And experience has always been the best teacher you can ever (or never) ask for. Friendship is such a beautiful experience and if you’ve never experienced one, then go get your butt up and get one.

It does not matter if it’s because you need someone to laugh at Negro pictures with or just someone for you to call ‘mangkuk terapung’ or ‘saka’ or someone to prank the lecturers with or someone you wanna listen to Vampire Weekend or MCR with. Or even someone for you to WhatsApp at 2am because you’re not feeling like yourself and he’s there to tell you you’ll make it through, or someone you tell the things you never told anyone before. It doesn’t matter if they’ll hug you in their bunk beds, or if they comfort you through messages though they’re kilometres away. Though friends can fall apart, but most of the times friends are what holds you together.

·         Clincher

So hold them while you still can. Because things end and people leave. Because love and friendship are two different things. Because we can’t stop time and we can’t intervene Allah’s work. Turn to your friends and hug them. They’re the second best gift from Allah to you, after your parents. So a shout out to my sakas and mangkuks, I love you lot.

Forgive me that this speech is not as informative, but I hope you lot still enjoy it. Thank you and assalamulaikum.

References

Friendship. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved August 10, 2004, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendship

Brace, N. & Byford, J. (Ed.) (2010) Discovering Psychology: What is Friendship. The Open University.